Wanaka bakery recruits top Kiwi baker as part of expansion plans

Award-winning Wanaka business The Bakery Wholesale has recruited one of New Zealand’s leading bakers as part of major business expansion plans.

Brent Hughes, himself an award-winning specialist artisan baker, will join The Bakery Wholesale on February 5 to lead the bread-making department of the business.

A third-generation baker with 30 years’ industry experience working in bakeries, supermarkets and industry corporates, Hughes has recently finished a 12-month stint as the bakery operations manager of a supermarket group in Australia. Prior to that he was the head tutor at the Bakels Training School, which included delivering programs developed with the prestigious Richemont Craft Bakery School, of Lucerne, Switzerland.

Hughes says he’s excited about starting his new role in Wanaka.

“Wanaka is a small but vibrant town and for me, it has a real village feel about it. It’s like a place out of Europe, with a great artisan bakery in the community. I’m all about artisan-style baking from scratch using creativity and basic ingredients, and I’m really looking forward to helping grow the artisan side of the business and being part of the community.”

Hughes was shoulder-tapped for the job by The Bakery Wholesale owner Ian Warner.

“We are really excited to have Brent join our company and to help us continue our growth trajectory. His skills will complement our existing team of talented bakers and we’re excited about seeing what the team will create in future,” Warner says.

Distributors of 17,000 pies daily, The Bakery Wholesale is one of the largest family-owned and operated bakery businesses in the South Island. It is investing more than $1 million to expand its facility on Frederick Street this year, and when complete it will have dedicated areas for bread production, pie production and a 230sq m freezer that will accommodate up to 250 pallets of frozen product for national distribution. The Bakery Wholesale is also a consistent winner at the Bakels NZ Pie Awards, including winning the title of NZ’s best vegetarian pie in 2016 and a silver medal for their mince and cheese pie in 2017, in the awards’ commercial wholesale category.

Written by Celia Crosbie

Celia is an award-winning journalist who has worked for newspapers and radio stations in New Zealand and magazines in the United Kingdom. She has worked in public relations in both NZ and London. Celia also specialises in digital media strategy and website copywriting for SEO.